It’s so cool. I’ve loved rivers long before I felt the call of the sea… Makes me happy to know the quiet restoration of local rivers taking place, as reflected in the annual return of anadromous glitters of abundance and hope.
sing
Thanks! Cool to get good news there, since that little fishie is such a crucial link in the marine food chain.
That herring in the picture for the Mystic in Florida is known as “White bait”. They are cast netted in the ocean for catching bigger fish.
They also make good eating breaded and pan fried. We have had them a couple of times this spring.
I liked the one biologist’s take about dams being akin to cholesterol blockages. Get human BS out of the way, and the rivers have a chance to heal.
As a young wise ass, I once surfed a boogie board down rapids in the Delaware around New Hope PA, wearing only a shorty wetsuit. Ran smack into the height of a shad run. Thousands of fish. When I got out of the water a local cop was waiting on the Jersey side of the river. He called out, “You know, someone was killed in those rapids just two weeks ago!” I said, “C’mon, shad aren’t all that dangerous.”
jaws theme…
Very cool sing.
We live in a small town in rural NH. We have an old dam. It is going to need work within 10 years or so. So the town and state are looking into what to do. There are all sorts of proposals. The problem, even from an environmental perspective, you just can tear it down. In our case the water upstream from the dam has a bio-diversity that includes some threatened species. The most expensive option is the best, of course. It involves putting in what is essentially a series of step damns down stream from the dam so the fish just view it as a rocky area.
The town has been actively seeking all sort of information from the residents about how they use the water, so at least we have that level of transparency. (And 10 miles up stream there is a ginormous dam so I’m not sure why they bother, they’re never taking that one down.)
I’m a big fan of restoring nature but in this case, restoring hurts other species. And of course greedy Paul wants his padding place close to home, but I do understand that there is an environmental price for that.
Shad… There is supposedly a good run up into the CT. River, up into MA and beyond. That is still one on my list to catch and eat. I hear both are good. 
Smacking head first into one on a paddle craft… Hmmm. 
sing
We live in a small town in rural NH. We have an old dam. It is going to need work within 10 years or so. So the town and state are looking into what to do. There are all sorts of proposals. The problem, even from an environmental perspective, you just can tear it down. In our case the water upstream from the dam has a bio-diversity that includes some threatened species.
I remember following this story in Taunton, MA, because at the time of an extremely wet spring, we thought there was going to be dam failure and catastrophe. Now…
Curious what “threatened” species is relying on your dam in NH.
sing
Blockquote
In Columbus GA they, the company I worked for, removed the Eagle & Phenix dam and created a white water park.
http://chattahoocheewhitewaterpark.com/
There are still dams in the hoochie but this is a pretty good use of some riverbed. Georgia Power still controls the river.
Wow… I think I saw that spot but in the winter. Is that in the center of town? I was there once while visiting my son at Fort Benning. I saw the white water but didn’t see any kayakers then.
I would love a ww water park near me. It would have to be tail water from one of the dams on the Charles River.
If I recall it was a plant that was growing in the created wetlands.
Technically edge of town but right downtown. One side is Columbus GA the other side is Phenix City , Alabama.
We did it on a raft. I have video of my feet flying by the camera leaving the boat.
We have a dam that was taken down uphill here in Troy, similar to an instance above it had aged to a point of needing major repairs that the resources and will were not there to manage.
The ecosystem behind it, and in an adjacent holding pond that also became a mud flat when the dam was allowed to fail, had extensive wetlands. With the drop in water they are now only wetlands after a really good rain, the rest of the time they are at best mud flats and fully froze this last winter.
I can’t talk about whether there were significant fish populations that relied on these wetlands for breeding etc. probably not given its location and elevation above a steep drop to where the water enters the Hudson. There were advocates involved in this one who would know. But in general wetlands can matter depending on what are in them. While dams prevent a lot of crucial fish activity where going uphill matters, the wetlands behind them offer major opportunities for other needs for fish populations. http://forestandrange.org/new_wetlands/pdfs/Fish_and_Wetlands_Document.pdf
Slower water in general. One of the disputes in Maine about harvesting seaweed, which has turned into a pretty hot debate now that the seaweed can generate real money, is that the seaweed beds provide shelter for breeding alewives. They have become crucial for supplementing herring as bait for lobstering in Maine, since the Atlantic herring population is under stress and US Fisheries has restricted how much can be taken.
I am sure once an environment has been altered by humans, something else will come in, take hold and thrive at the expense of the native species. Examples of Invasive species of flora and fauna are everywhere. Personally, I am not uniformly appalled. But, sometimes I do feel a sense of loss for some of the majestic species that get displaced or lost.
I was just watching a short film about the restoration of a Elwha River in the Olympia National Forest. Two dams have been removed in the past 5-6 years. A native species of steelhead (anadromous rainbow trout) that was thought extinct, began showing up again in increasing numbers several years after the removal of the last dam. Pretty miraculous and happy stuff in my opinion. 
sing
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@sing
These researchers had a wonderful experience. What a treat to have had this time, and as part of your
job!
You been getting out fishing yet? Seems like the stripers are starting back up.